Understanding the Economic Justice of Marriage

May 13, 2012

The Catholic Church is sometimes unfairly reproached because of an inaccurate perception that her defense of marriage and family diminishes her efforts to address economic problems such as poverty and the rights of workers.

For example, during a recent conversation I was asked when “the Catholic Church [will] stop involving herself in social issues like abortion and marriage and begin solving real problems like economic injustice.”

Creating False Dichotomies

The question sets up a false dichotomy pitting two complementary and necessarily interdependent aspects of human life against each other. This view assumes that issues that intersect with human sexuality are simply “private issues” as opposed to social questions.

Marriage, however, is a profoundly social institution. The civil institution of marriage primarily serves the well-being of children and affirms the optimal setting for their development. This, in turn, helps protect and nurture the next generation and the good of society.

Those who suggest that marriage is simply the emotional union of two adults, or that the government should not be in the marriage business at all, advocate for what we may call a “social free market,” that is, an individualist theory that reduces government functions to facilitating “choice,” and which conceives its purpose almost entirely in terms of limiting the harm individuals do to each other as they pursue their various lifestyle choices.

Rather than unite individuals in service of the common good, this unbridling of man’s thirst for his own self-interest atomizes society and isolates individuals from community. As Pope Leo XIII wrote in the encyclical Libertas Praestantissimum, the proponents of a social free market would “… adopt as their own [the] rebellious cry, ‘I will not serve’ and consequently substitute for true liberty what is sheer and most foolish license.”

The lust for freedom ignores the moral values and legal structures needed to defend and support the family. Just as it is an error to let economic relationships be governed solely by the logic of unbridled market forces, it is also a similar mistake to relegate marriage to the private sphere, as if it were just another private contract between consenting parties.

The Premium Paid for Individualism

According to research, children of divorce and single-parent homes are three times more likely to drop out of school or have babies in their teenage years, are five times more likely to end up poor, and are 12 times more likely to be incarcerated.

Our society is also steadily becoming fatherless. Today, roughly 40 percent of our children are raised in homes without fathers, a statistic we cannot attribute only to economic conditions, but largely to the combination of no-fault divorce, fragmented or “alternative” parenting, abortion and contraception, which are disrupting our human ecosystem and fueling a culture of hyper-sexualized individualism.

The effects of rampant individualism are not confined to the private sphere, but have profound costs, especially economic ones. When children do well and are formed as virtuous citizens, they will grow up to be productive economic actors. When they do not do well, especially in school, it has profound consequences for not only their own long-term well-being but also for whole economies. Stable marriages produce children who have higher educational attainment. As the Social Trends Institute recently concluded, the well-being of a nation’s economy is closely connected to the well-being of the nuclear family.

Healthy Marriages, Healthy Economies

Here we get back to the original question about why the church spends so much time defending marriage. The church speaks to both marriage and the economy because they are both related to human happiness and social prosperity, and the church wishes to support and contribute to both.

If structural problems require structural solutions, as proponents of economic justice correctly observe, then we ought to pay closer attention to the integral relationship between economics and the social order, and promote what Pope Benedict calls a healthy human ecology.

The author G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.” In this vein, those of us with social concerns can no longer afford to play the socio-economic “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” debate over whether economic or cultural forces fragment the family. It isn’t an either/or dilemma. It’s both. Ignoring social justice in the family or in the economy only encourages individualist social and economic policies that come at the expense of human dignity.

Richard Aleman
Originally from Barcelona, Spain, Richard Aleman is the editor of The Hound of Distributism, a collection of essays by leading distributist authors from around the world. His articles have appeared in Catholic Rural Life, GILBERT, The Bellarmine Forum, Christus Rex, The Catholic Spirit, and Our Northland Diocese. He lives with his wife in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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39 Comments

Why isn’t same sex marriage accepted? Because if you have now redefined marriage as anything other than one man one woman, you have opened the definition up for any relationship. If the qualifier is two people that love one another, then why isn’t it okay for three, four,(polygamy) people to marry, etc.. Not only this but Father/Son, Father/Daughter. If two people who love each other is the only criteria then who can deny other imagined relationships.

Zeb, I don’t mean to pile on, but in addition to what Derrick, the gay rights movement has many well organized and powerful political/social entities, most of which are hell-bent on furthering their agenda. Many of these groups are extremely hostile to traditional Christianity. It’s not just tolerance they want, but dominance. I believe it is high time people of faith start speaking the truth loudly and publicly, yet without malice, that homosexuals are indeed mentally ill. Maybe then the general public will start to look at them with reasoned eye instead of bleeding heart.

Ken, I agree that homosexuality should be seen as a mental illness. That is part of why it is offensive to talk about a “gay rights crowd” as if it is some nefarious conspiracy of perverted thrill seekers trying to corrupt society. When people with OCD or bi-polar disorder succumb to the compulsions of their disorders we don’t call them wicked. And when they seek to be treated as normal we don’t accuse them of conspiring to undermine the social order. I think it is almost always a bad idea to try to rank or equate sins, but I find it hard to imagine how gay sex would be worse than straight sex outside of marriage. Because there are no children involved and no real marriages broken it seems to me gay sex should if anything be less bad than straight sex outside of marriage.

ad 1: every treatment different from two men (women) passing some of their leisure time together.

ad 2: The State may not explicitly refer to sex in marriage, but that’s the point: he does at least implicitly, by the very fact that the law about marriage is a law about marriage. If the State defines things from the void, he usually says so, and we should protest (from sheer democratic feeling) if he does so with as popular a word as “marriage” and does so contrary to popular usage.

By the way, Germany does refer to sex in marriage: “Spouses owe each other the matrimonial life-community”. (Somewhere BGB.) [The Processes Law says explicitly “this debt is not subject to physical enforcement”…]

Anyway, with the talk about “two men devoting their life to each other”, there does come in the “don’t fool us” issue, you know… and there may, at this point, not really earlier, come in the point of morality: which is the morality of natural law, not “the Catholic Church imposing its own morality”: it is not anything Revealed.

For Catholics, upholding Catholic teaching against civil homosexual unions is essential, since Catholic teaching is based on the Natural Law, which the State has to uphold, being under Christ the King (even if not under the Catholic Church). The State still has its duty to God, if not to the Church.

Zeb, sorry for being so offensive, It’s just that I believe “gravely disordered” indeed means psychopathology, as affirmed by the A.P.A. prior to the 1973 power grab by gay activists. Homosexuality is a disordered mental condition. Though many gays function well socially, the acceptance of them as normal in all areas of society can only be detrimental to the culture. Heterosexual infidelity is sinful but even it cannot be equated with the sick sinfulness of homosexual unions. I’m sorry if you find this offensive.

Some good points have been made here, and I thank everyone who has responded to my question. My two biggest remaining questions on the subject are
1. What exactly should the government withhold from gay couples, and why? Is it just the term ‘marriage’?
2. The Catholic Church teaches that certain sexual acts are inherently disordered. Whatever acts gays cannot do are also forbidden to my wife and me. But the state does not explicitly refer to sex in marriage. As far as the state is concerned my wife and I could be living a celibate marriage, as could a gay couple who get legally married. And the Church has no teaching against two men or two women devoting their lives to each other and living together. So why must we use Catholic teaching against homosexual sex to condemn civil homosexual “marriage”?

Vi King — Ivan is right. Additionally, sexual behavior, rightly ordered, must accept an openness to new life. Only sexual complementarity can achieve that end. Homosexual ‘sex’ is utterly closed to new life. As Ivan infers, Catholic thought is always based on a proper understanding of first principles. (Btw, marriage as a Sacrament is part of Catholic dogma, I think — sexual details within sacramental marriage might not be ‘dogma’ per se).

If you really want something difficult to tackle, consider that while infertility does not invalidate new marriage, impotence (including paralysis) does. I’m not sure if technological “help” (pumps or medication) changes that or not. For a marriage to be complete in every detail, (the definition of consummation), sexual intercourse must be possible.

The point is that the Church links marriage with new life directly. In that view, we can see how the life issues are directly related to the issue of marriage & family. Since openness to new life is organically linked to marriage, opposing same-sex “marriage” has a connection to opposing abortion, euthanasia, etc. Protecting Life and defending Family are equally part of a Catholic Pro-Life mentality.

forgive me, but I cannot understand what you cannot understand. You say that you “totally agree with the Church maintaining a strict teaching about the theology of the sacrament of matrimony for only one man and one woman”. Congratulations! (I’m serious, this is not found often.)

Now we are not talking about any restriction against homosexual couples. These, too, have been there in the past, and are far more problematic; but that’s a totally different thing. The only thing you raised is why the State should not call these non-marriages marriages.

Forgive me, but as far as I see this question is self-answering. The State should not call these non-marriages marriages because they are not marriages. (And if it comes to the governmental funding which sometimes comes along with marriage, there really is a difference between the core of human society, Family, ordinarily created by Marriage, existing to an extent even without children, and the private fun of a couple of innormal inclinations.)

And if the talk is about a threat to society, well, perhaps this is too easily assumed by those contrary to the Church while the Church herself does not nearly as much talk about a threat to Society. However, I might say that whenever yellow is called blue by official directive, this in itself is a threat to Society, and we do not know what evil could not come of it in some future.

Secular marriage and the Sacrament of Marriage are not entirely different things; the second is the exaltation of the first which happens when the partners are Christians. (And able to contract marriage. Still, e. g. post-divorce marriages of Catholics can objectively be said to resemble real marriage much more than same-sex unions do; which then is another story. Also, “I am tolerating evil A” is no argument why to tolerate evil B.)

What are you talking about Ken? It is people like you who make the Catholic Church sound like an institution of hate and our theology seem like a mere fig leaf for perverse bias. “Gay rights crowd” “religous equality” and “sordid unions”? You’re out to lunch. The “gay rights crowd” is merely the majority of Americans who see no reason to discriminate against gay couples because our Church and the others, unfortunately, has provided them no clearly argued non-religious reason to discriminate and no clear direction about exactly how to discriminate and how not to. And very, very few people are demanding religious equality. What the majority is expecting is legal equality. As for the “sordid unions,” is that what we call all second marriages? No that is not how loving and respectful people refer to each other’s misguided attempts at finding love and family.

When the state normalizes same sex unions by allowing openly gay armed forces, the indoctrination of children in public schools, coupled with the pop culture push to aggrandize them and business corporations allowing for financial and health benefits for such; what the Church has to say about them makes not much difference to the culture at large. The only reason for gay rights crowd to demand religious equality for their sordid unions is to totally denude the last entity that points out the aberration they are.

Zeb — You are right that Catholic marriages are different than secular marriages or even Protestant marriages or marriages from other religions. The institution of marriage has certainly been degraded (primarily by the influence of progressive ideas, imo). Still, these non-Catholic marriages are not inherently disordered. Same-sex “marriage” is. It is different in kind. It requires a fundamental alteration of the true definition. It is not an addition to what marriage has always meant, it is a tearing down of true marriage. When things are altered to such a degree, especially when those things are foundational to a healthy society, disintegration seems inevitable.

In your mind, what will be the results when society accepts ssm? Will the resulting effects on the culture be positive, negative, or neutral? Do you trust the wisdom of the Church when she says that small errors in the formation of an idea will always result in big consequences coming due down the road? The Church is a wise and sane guide in an unwise and insane world. She doesn’t impose, she proposes. That is her role and obligation in a pluralistic society. She not only looks out for the common good, but more importantly, looks out for good of the souls in that community. The Church not only says that homosexual behavior is harmful for individuals and for society, she says it is sinful, putting the immortal souls of our brothers and sisters in peril. To sanction ssm would make the Church and individual Catholics complicit in sin.

You seem to agree that there is a case to be made for including Catholic thinking in the public debate on the topics of contraception and divorce, but not for ssm. We know that the two foundational social teachings of the Church center on the protection and defense of life and family. Defending the family, (the bedrock of society in Catholic teaching — as opposed to the individual or the community in other ways of thinking), means defending traditional marriage. This is as critical for the culture as is defending life. Protecting traditional marriage is part of the whole of Catholic social teaching. It is all related to the order vs. disorder discussion and protecting the common good.

Nearly the entire population, including a majority of American Catholics, scoffed at the many predictions made in Humanae Vitae. We now see that HV has been thoroughly vindicated. The wide acceptance of artificial contraception has had dire consequences on the broader society, further separating us from the truth of human nature and from God. The Church is now saying similar things about ssm. (And there certainly is a link between the prior acceptance of contraception and the more recent push for ssm — see Raymond Dennehy’s, ‘Contraception and Homosexuality: The Sterile Link of Separation’). If there were an encyclical (Humanae Matrimonium??) on fundamentally redefining marriage, should we doubt that it would also ultimately be vindicated? The rational arguments concerning ssm are completely on the side the Church (and I wish they would be clearly, concisely and formally stated). The problem is that principled thought is no longer allowed into the debate. The debate has been rigged for decades so that the default “rationale” favors those who redefine the terms and then call names.
Trust the Church on this issue.

“Those who suggest that marriage is simply the emotional union of two adults, or that the government should not be in the marriage business at all, advocate for what we may call a “social free market,” that is, an individualist theory that reduces government functions to facilitating “choice,” and which conceives its purpose almost entirely in terms of limiting the harm individuals do to each other as they pursue their various lifestyle choices.”

The arguements Mr. Aleman makes about the harm of divorce and contriception to society and the econmy would (and do) apply equally to homosexual “marriages”.

Too many people regard marriage as the “emotional union of two adults”, which can be ended easily when emotions change (as they inevitably do). Nor should these unions be “needlessly” complicated by children. in short, there should be no sacrafice, only satisfaction. Marriage is simply the sanctioning of two people using each other for pleasure. No wonder so many younger people have no intention of getting married.

Of course, if marriage really were simply the “emotional union of two adults”, as so many believe, the homosexual lobby would not be fighting so hard to have their “marriages” recognized. Which gets back to the Natural Law. They want their actions recognized because deep down they know they are wrong.

But the battle is being lost in our society because “fairness” and “equality” make better soundbites than “violation of the Natural Law” or “intrensically disordered.”

And yes, the state should refuse to give business licenses to pornographers. Every day there is a growing body of evidence of how harmful it is to men, women, children, the family, and yes, even the economy.

But also this, even if the Church didn’t say so, the State is still a creature, bound to its duty by God. So it would in conscience be bound to do what the Church insists upon: observance of the moral law. So no Catholic State or not, it is still bound by moral law. So goes Catholic teaching.

Sorry, I was only explaining the position of the Church in which it is in a position to tell the State what it must do. I’m only talking about the ideal. Sorry if it sounded like I meant it should be implemented right away without any prudence, here in the US.

But yeah, the Church would be telling the State not to do any of those things you mention, at least in a Catholic State.

I should say that as argumentative as I may sound, I actually don’t have strong position on this and that’s why I’m asking. I want to see that the bishops are right in emphasizing opposition to gay marriage (and not just divorce and contraception as the article nicely justifies), and I want to be able to defend that opposition to my many non-Catholic friends.

Paul, should the state refuse to give business licenses to pornographers? Should it refuse to recognize the church status of false religions? And which benefits of true marriage in particular should the government refuse to provide to committed gay couples? Should the government also refuse to grant those benefits to second ‘marriages’ (along with the title ‘marriage’)?

The State is still subject to God, as the Church teaches; it is not completely autonomous. The State would be condoning a violation of the Natural Law, which is part of Divine Law. Also, a secondary reason would be homosexual “marriages” would get the same benefits as true marriages, which in justice should not even be contemplated.

I agree with the Church’s theology about the disordered nature of homosexual acts and the exclusiveness of the sacrament of marriage, but that is only a reason for the Church not to perform gay marriages. It is not an argument for the State not to recognize gay unions. The two suggestions, offered by Doug and Mark, for why the State should not recognize gay ‘marriage’ are that it would lead to unrestrained sexual activity and that it will introduce disorder into our society which will in some unnamed way lead to other unnamed bad consequences. But as Vi King says, civil marriages (and religous ones in other congregations) would surely act as a restraint on sexual activity by promoting long term monogamy among gay people. Needless to say anyone considering gay ‘marriage’ is almost certainly not practicing chastity until they get a green light from the state. As to introducing disorder or “undermining the institution” I guess that could be demonstrated with a rigorous historical analysis with unambiguous conclusions, but until that materializes all we have is our theology about the nature of sin and the communion of saints. Again that is a good reason for the Church to be strict and exclusive in it’s provision of the sacrament, but it is not an argument we can take to the public square and frankly I don’t find it a convincing argument for why I should bring it into the ballot booth. Are we arguing about an institution or a word? The state has already completely redifined the word ‘marriage.’ Whatever it is that Brittany Spears and her back up dancer did on a drunken night in Las Vegas, I don’t see why as Catholics we should be denying that legal process to gay couples, even if the state calls it “marriage.” It seems to me that in American English “marriage” is just a synonym for “civil union” and has been for a long time, and what we Catholics do in a Church is a different thing that should have a different word. In the article Richard makes a good case against divorce and contraception grounds that could appeal to non-Catholics and that Catholics have good reason to bring into their political involvement, but I don’t see yet how any of it changes when the people in the ‘marriage’ are of the same gender.

The other thing to note is that single parenthood is a financial death sentence. A single mother not only has to work, but to pay for care for her children. There are heroic women who make it happen, but it should not be normal and we lack the social structure to help single mothers deal with the situation.

Zeb — Adding to what others have said, the Church understands that there is a proper, natural order of things that, when recognized and followed, allows for the flourishing of human life. When that natural order is broken, things deteriorate. The Church rightly, by definition, says that homosexual behavior is disordered. Introducing disorder into an ordered system will always lead to the breakdown of order, deterioration, and a loss of human flourishing. There are many things that break from the natural order. They are not necessarily “bad” or even wrong, but they should not be equated with or held up to the same working purpose of ordered things.

The same-sex “marriage” debate really comes down to what consequences will follow if it becomes accepted within society. Proponents of ssm believe that the consequences will be positive; opponents believe that the consequences will be negative. I would say that the odds fall in favor of those opposed based on the factual, historical evidence of the order/disorder notions discussed above. It is seen every time disorder enters a system. Proponents of ssm are basing their positive consequences mainly on emotional attachments to ‘compassion,’ ‘equality,’ ‘tolerance,’ ‘fairness,’ and ‘freedom.’ But in large measure those terms have been redefined in order to suit a flawed social and political agenda. And now they must redefine the term ‘marriage’ to suit another element in that agenda. Returning to the correct, traditional definitions of things will be a huge first step in returning to the proper ordering of human life.

ViKing, Paul should have said the purpose of the sexual act is procreation, and the sexual act should only take place within marriage for this reason. He is more correct to say your statements are contrary to Natural Law.

In addition to the procreative aspect of sexual intercourse, their is also a unitive and complimentary aspect. That is, two people engaging in sexual intercourse are completing each other, making each other whole. This can only be accomplished between two indiviuals of opposite genders. Two men do not bring anything unique to the relationship. The same can be said of two women. This does not mean two people of the same gender cannot have a loving, committed, long-lasting relationship. It just would not be a marriage and should not involve sexual activity.

Separate sexual activity its procreative and complimentary aspects, which rightly can only be fulfilled in marriage, and what do you get? Marriage is simply a contract of commitment between two people who love each other (the position of the homosexual lobby). But if that’s all it is, why limit it to two people? Why should sexual activity be limited to marriage anyway? (In practice, it isn’t by a large number of people.) Anyone able to consent should have the right to engage in whatever activity they desire. The logical conclusion is there should be no restraint on sexual activity between and among consenting individuals. Notice I have not said consenting adults, because a significant number advocating to redefine marriage have also advocated for allowing anyone post-pubesent the right to consent.

To summarize, redeefining marriage would further undermine the institution, harming the common good as outlined in the original article.

Well then, Paul, is the union of a post-menopausal woman with a man not a marriage? For that matter, does a marriage cease to exist when the children have fled the nest and the mother has “the change”? Please answer these basic questions.
Viking

Doug C., the trouble, IMO, with your argument for marriage as procreative in nature is that it equally excludes weddings of post-menopausal brides, who are also sterile, as well as any in which one or both partners is naturally infertile. Would you also deny such would-be partners the right to marry as you would gay and lesbian couples?
I find your suggestion that gay/lesbian marriage would make for “unrestrained sexual activity” rather bizarre. G/L marriage would subject such couples to the same pressures to be faithful as now exist for heterosexual marital partners, to whatever extent they do so. I must say that the Catholic church seems more than a little hypocritical on this matter, given the revelations concerning a number of its priests, about whom it did so little to effectively censure. I was admittedly raised as a Protestant, so haven’t the visceral reaction to such scandals as many of you no doubt do.
I agree with your second letter, Doug, families without an adult male in them are far from ideal, to say the least.
Viking

Villages or small towns or even urban neighborhoods were composed of mostly realted individuals (or individuals of the same ethnic background) who tended to share values and belief systems. When your neighbors were your aunts and uncles and cousins or in-laws, it was easy for the “village” to help raise a child.

Another point I seem to remember reading somewhere. Cultures have a tendency to collapse after wars when fathers are gone for long periods of time and young males especially are left to grow up without male supervision. Think of Europe after WWI, the South after the Civil War. Our fatherless nation may be the first case in history where a society “intentionally” inflicted this kind of damage on itself.

Zeb: I am not a theologian, but I believe the arguement goes something like this. Sexual union is intended to be an act between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation as well as an expression of love. It is an act of giving to each other as well as a willingness to sacrifice together for any offspring which may result from the union. That is why it is reserved for marriage, which is a life-long commitment. Marriage is a life-giving relationship. Homosexual relationships are by their very nature sterile. By sanctioning the union of homosexual couples, sexual acts are removed from their intended life-giving aspect. This opens the door to all kinds of sexual acts. In fact, i have seen no justification for sanctioning homesexuality which could not be used to justify performing sexual acts with anyone (or any thing). If unrestrained sexually activity does not have a damaging effect on society, I don’t know what will.

How does “gay marriage” relate to this? While I totally agree with the Church maintaining a strict teaching about the theology of the sacrament of matrimony for only one man and one woman, I don’t understand why Church leaders are so active in opposing the extension of legal marriage to gay couples. How does giving gay couples the same legal status as straight ones threaten society?

When Laura says, “We leave the parenting to the two people in question, and do not expect mature married adults to seek much outside support,” I read “two people” literally as mother and father only.

So assuming my reading is correct, one agreeing with Laura could say that, actually, not enough family is being fallen back on–family like grandparents, for example, who might be a great source of support outside a child’s mother and father.

One of the reasons, though, that single parenthood is so problematic in our society is that we have lost our larger social ties and limited our responsibility to one another to the married family unit. In a sense, marriage, as we have come to understand it in the 20th century is a form of rugged individualism. We leave the parenting to the two people in question, and do not expect mature married adults to seek much outside support.

We do not have barn raisings or communities that take responsibility for all of the children in the village.

So our social problems could be addressed by trying to ensure that everyone enters a legal marriage and continuing to limit our sphere of responsibility to families based the marital unit, or we could solve these social ills by extending our sense of responsibility of each other to include more than our biological kin and our legally married spouses.

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